Disengagement and complacency has become the 21st Century disease
eating away at organization's performance in the 21st Century. From
sales teams to manufacturing and operations, disengagement is spreading
like a summer wildfire on the West Coast. A recent Kelley Service's
reports that less than half (44 percent) of the global workforce feels
valued by their employer and two-thirds (66 percent) intend to look for a
new job with another organization in the next year. The survey also
concludes that those who are content with their current position are
seeking greater engagement and meaning from their positions and cite the
ability to 'excel or develop' (74 percent of respondents) as the key to
providing a sense of meaning in their work.
Dan Pink has been writing and speaking about this for months. A recent bestselling book by Dan, titled "Drive" goes into how and why we got this way. Not to quibble with Dan Pink, my thoughts about how we got this way is weak leadership. For instance upon approaching companies to survey and offer a solution to this disengagement, complacency and motivation dilemma one hears the following excuses: "I need to get consensus from my team before starting an initiative like this." "We tried something like this before and it did not work. (Not a lot of Edison's out there today) Get together with the committee and present your ideas.
All of these stalls to making a leadership decision are being touted in order to justify being risk averse. Let me elaborate. Yesterday I went to the Space and Rocket museum in Huntsville Alabama. What would have occurred if we took these same risk aversion approaches in the 1960"s? Would we as a nation today strap five 18, 416 pound disposable rocket engines with 1,500,000 of thrust each to a test stand in order to make sure they would work? This despite the fact numerous failures occurred as they tested individual engines on these same test stands. Great leaders did this to determine if we as a nation could meet our mission on schedule. I am starting to think we as a nation and as organizations are going backwards due to leaders that are risk averse.
Back in 1960 we had a mission and a vision that every one believed in. Apply this concept to our organizations today. Do workers and leaders share their personal visions, missions and emotions at their organizations today? For instance I am always told there is too much to do and not enough time to get it all done. When I endeavor to discuss a proven way to use peoples exiting software married with a proven process to fix this the leaders of companies are too busy to pursue the fix.
If you want to have a fully engaged workforce you must inculcate more "Causal Motivation." "Casual Motivation" defined by Target Training International occurs when an environment is created that causes people to WANT to work and be the best they can. The simple axiom is people do things for their reasons not yours. Strong leaders are determined to find out what are the values that motivate each of their team members to come to work every day to excel and develop beyond their potential.
Dan Pink has been writing and speaking about this for months. A recent bestselling book by Dan, titled "Drive" goes into how and why we got this way. Not to quibble with Dan Pink, my thoughts about how we got this way is weak leadership. For instance upon approaching companies to survey and offer a solution to this disengagement, complacency and motivation dilemma one hears the following excuses: "I need to get consensus from my team before starting an initiative like this." "We tried something like this before and it did not work. (Not a lot of Edison's out there today) Get together with the committee and present your ideas.
All of these stalls to making a leadership decision are being touted in order to justify being risk averse. Let me elaborate. Yesterday I went to the Space and Rocket museum in Huntsville Alabama. What would have occurred if we took these same risk aversion approaches in the 1960"s? Would we as a nation today strap five 18, 416 pound disposable rocket engines with 1,500,000 of thrust each to a test stand in order to make sure they would work? This despite the fact numerous failures occurred as they tested individual engines on these same test stands. Great leaders did this to determine if we as a nation could meet our mission on schedule. I am starting to think we as a nation and as organizations are going backwards due to leaders that are risk averse.
Back in 1960 we had a mission and a vision that every one believed in. Apply this concept to our organizations today. Do workers and leaders share their personal visions, missions and emotions at their organizations today? For instance I am always told there is too much to do and not enough time to get it all done. When I endeavor to discuss a proven way to use peoples exiting software married with a proven process to fix this the leaders of companies are too busy to pursue the fix.
If you want to have a fully engaged workforce you must inculcate more "Causal Motivation." "Casual Motivation" defined by Target Training International occurs when an environment is created that causes people to WANT to work and be the best they can. The simple axiom is people do things for their reasons not yours. Strong leaders are determined to find out what are the values that motivate each of their team members to come to work every day to excel and develop beyond their potential.
